The third treatise in this volume belongs to a later period, being a letter written to Bonifacius,the Roman Count of Africa under Valentinian the Third. He had written to Augustin to consulthim as to the best means of dealing with the Donatists; and Augustin in his reply points out to himhis mistake in supposing that the Donatists shared in the errors of the Arians, whilst he urges himto use moderation in his coercive measures; though both here and in his answer to Petilianus wefind him countenancing the theory that the State has a right to interfere in constraining men to keepwithin the Church. Starting with a forced interpretation of the words, "Compel them to come in,"in Luke xiv. 23, he enunciates principles of coercion which, though in him they were subdued andrendered practically of little moment by the spirit of love which formed so large an element in hischaracter, yet found their natural development in the despotic intolerance of the Papacy, and thehorrors of the Inquisition. It is probable that he was himself in some degree misled by confoundingthe necessity of repressing the violence of the Circumcelliones, which was a real offense againstthe State, with the expediency of enforcing spiritual unity by temporal authority.The Donatist treatises have met with little attention from individual editors. There is adissertation, De Aur. Augustino adversario Donatistarum, by Adrien Roux, published at Louvainin 1838;1144 but it is believed that no treatises of this series have ever before been translated intoEnglish, nor are they separately edited. They are in themselves a valuable authority for an importantscene in the history of the Church, and afford a good example both of the strength and the weaknessof Augustin’s writing,—its strength, in the exhaustive way in which he tears to pieces his opponent’sarguments, and the clearness with which he exposes the fallacies of their reasoning; its weakness,in the persistency with which he pursues a point long after its discussion might fairly have beenclosed, as though he hardly knew when he had gained the victory; and his tendency to claim, byright of his position, a vantage-ground which did not in reality belong to him till the superiority ofhis cause was proved.J. R. KingOxford, March, 1870.

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1144

The other works bearing on this controversy are mentioned in the exhaustive volume of Ferd. Ribbeck, Donatus undAugustinus (Elberfeld, 1858).—Ed.